Rama’s gamble

When Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama recently gave a lengthy television interview, the host saved the most telling question for last. Now that Rama had been in the prime minister’s seat for four months, did he believe there was any campaign pledge that he would not be able to deliver on within the first mandate, the host asked. Rama paused for a couple of seconds, then answered: None.
But the prime minister’s confidence cannot hide hard facts that make many experts in Albanian politics believe that the Socialist-led government has over-promised and won’t be able to deliver on the 300,000 new jobs promised in a weak economic climate or be successful in overhauling the systems of healthcare, pensions and property rights to bring them up to modern European standards.
But then, if Rama is taking a gamble, in 2014, he will have the sort of hand that comes once in a career for a politician. Barring any unpredictable events, 2014 will have the distinction of being politically quiet enough for real work to take place on reforms and programs. The Socialist-led government has the sort of majority in parliament Albania hasn’t seen in more than a decade. The main opposition Democratic Party has accepted its electoral loss and handed over the reigns of the country to lead an opposition from its weakest position since the riots of 1997. Unlike previous governments, which had been for years impeded by scandals, political fights and deadlocks, Rama’s government, formed through a coalition of the Socialist Party he leads and the Socialist Movement for Integration of Ilir Meta, has a free hand and wide support in 2014.
Rama says the government has hit the ground running. “Even though 100 days are too few to complete any of the major tasks on which, we were elected, they were enough to to clearly determine a new course of direction to the future of Albania,” Rama said in his year-end press conference.
But critics in the Democratic Party-led opposition say that is not the case, and accuse the prime minister and his cabinet of spending much of the early months in power focusing on bashing the previous governance rather than doing any actual work.
The Socialist-led government officials may have repeatedly highlighted the bad state of affairs when they took over as part of a strategy to show the progress they plan to impement, but analysts say that in 2014, the Socialist-led government will have to switch focus from the past to the future and prove itself through actions, implementing meaningful reforms and working to show some fast results.

Government will face many pressures

It won’t be easy. The economy and the state finances are in bad shape due to domestic and international factors. With unemployment and economic pressures being high, if parts of the electorate don’t see returns on their votes for the Socialists, they are likely to quickly turn against Rama and his cabinet.
The local administrative elections of 2015 will be the next electoral test for the Socialist-led government to follow the expected reforms and programs in 2014, but as the recent protests against the weapons’ dismantle program proposal pointed out, Albanian prime ministers now have to face another force they have never the seen before – the politically-unaffiliated protester movement which has taken root in several countries in response to the economic crisis.
The new government knows that it is expected to deliver in a way that has not been seen in the past in the country. It has already undertaken some steps in that direction.
To fight perceptions of corruption in previous administration, Rama has made some bold moves catapulting young officials into the highest levels in areas like customs and taxes, arguing they can help change the system from the top, but encountering criticism that they lack the needed experience to lead some of the country’s most important institutions.
But these young officials will be in charge of public service employees that have largely been staffed by the politically-affiliated or that have seen a high turnover due to political reasons, affecting the quality of the candidate pool and the work itself.
One of the ugliest features of Albania’s transition in the past two decades has been the political nature of the country’s civil service. Activists and those with ties to the parties in power get the jobs first, often through sham competitions. Rama says he wants to change all that. But critics of the government say that despite lip service paid to opening positions for qualified candidates, the trend is continuing with the new government.
“Unfortunately, they [the government] are continuing with the old tactics, through which the state administration offices are emptied of civil service employees, some of which might indeed be opposition activists, but which are still being replaced with other activists. This doesn’t show any great progress. This is to continue the status quo,” says Dashamir Shehi, an opposition member of parliament.
The new government, for example, issued a directive postponing the implementation of a new EU-backed law on the civil service, saying it needed more time to be fully implement regulations tied to the law. The directive was later declared unconstitutional by the country’s highest court. The law creates strong job guarantees for civil service employees, and critics say the directive served the government to buy time orchestrating the removal from civil service of hundreds of employees in order to make room for activists of the ruling parties. The ruling parties say they are simply removing the politically-connected and hiring professionals.
In addition, a massive overhaul of the country’s tax system – from flat to progressive taxation נhas business worried about its implementation, and the economic and financial climate in general remains the government’s top challenge, experts say. And it is clearly the top item on the list for Albanian voters.
Concerns about the economy and jobs led Albanians’ list of worries ahead of the general parliamentary elections, according a countrywide study conducted by the Albanian Institute for International Studies last year. Two thirds of the Albanian citizens asked described the economic situation in Albania as either bad or very bad followed by 22 percent which said it was average and a small group of 7 percent that said it was good. Virtually nobody described the economic situation as very good. And Albanians were not optimistic either. As for future expectations, the majority, 32 percent, expects no change in the economic outlook, 29 percent say that it will improve and 21 percent expected deterioration. This week, authorities revealed Albania saw in the third quarter of 2013 the first negative economic growth since 2009.
In addition to the economy, it is increasingly clear the government will have to deliver tangible results from reforms that aim to create a stronger rule of law and improve the fight against crime and corruption if it wants to further its EU bid.

EU progress still up in the air

On those fronts, Albania will need all the progress it can muster until June, when the question of its application to become an official candidate for membership in the European Union will come up again.
The country was hoping to get the status last December, having obtain the support of EU’s executive and legislative branches, but five EU members said they wanted to postpone a decision until they saw some results from the reforms Albania had undertaken as a condition to be granted the status.
Although Albania has support from several EU nations and and the full backing of EU’s own official bodies, there is a real chance Albania’s EU progress will stall in 2014 due to the country facing a more skeptic European electorate in 2014 as there will be EU parliamentary elections before June, in which euro-skeptic, anti-enlargement parties are expected top gain ground. With enlargement decisions requiring unanimous votes, a strong opposition by a minority group can postpone progress on Albania’s bid for a fifth time.
Twenty fourteen will be “a year of continuing with determination on the path of integration and we will do everything Albania must do in a proper way,” Rama said in a press conference. “Let’s hope the outcome of June decision will depend entirely on our work and will not be affected, as as the case unfortunately last time, by the influence of some extremist forces in Europe, which have nothing in common with the ideal values European Union.”